Whiff o’ the Week (11/9/14)

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

All of our names are written in the dust, for we are naught but dust, and to dust we shall return. It is time now for Whiff o’ the Week.

First things first, to the victor go the spoils. As you can see, At the Gates seem to have committed the most egregious offense, though Randall Thor put up a fair fight.

If you feel that you may best bear the burden of judgment, then put forth a submission for next week. Next Sunday, we’ll be voting on a new, specific whiff category. You’ll notice this week that the whiffs are beginning to get personal, so lest we tear ourselves asunder, I propose that we once again refocus our whiffing on the dregs of metal. Next week’s category:

What is the most terrible song on an otherwise great album?

Submit your entries to the gmail. Well then, let us commence with this week’s competition.

W.

The other day someone asked me if I made it to Rob Zombie‘s last concert here in my dusty little town. I did not, although I do think that Mr. Zombie puts on an entertaining live show. His back-catalogue, however, is far from spotless. While ruminating on his career, I remembered this terrible song that used to spin on the local rock station back home. I revisited it, and as suspected, “Foxy, Foxy” is as bad as I remembered.

Papa Joe

Prince is awesome. He might be my favorite artist of all time, so I take it a little personally when some jagoff lowest-common-denominator fuckfaces like TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION rip off a Prince classic (“Darling Nikki”, of course) to create a soundtrack to a drunken hate crime. The entire song is offensive but the bridge (2:18) seems especially heinous as the band seems so desperate to add some emotional weight to a song about fucking strippers. This is why people hate Pantera. Barf/10.

SMOHLG

Sorrow and Extinction was my AOTY by a long shot back in 2012 so saying I had high expectations for Pallbearer‘s follow-up would be a bit of an understatement. In contrast to W.’s pick a while back, I don’t believe the whole album is a whiff, but there is one defining moment that always sticks in my mind; a moment that told me Foundations of Burden would fail big time in reaching the heights of its predecessor. Despite an ok start and a strong finish, the 2:40 mark of the opening track “Worlds Apart” finds the track completely derailing with the vocal and guitar melodies sounding completely off. Listen for yourself:

Flush the entire fucking album. Two of the most hated and ludicrous Norwegian black metal musicians combine forces and release this wet fart abortion. To the discriminatingly tasteful, as appealing as boiled legumes covered in period blood.

Simon Phoenix

I’m not even going to bother with a witty joke about this “band”. I’m also not going to bother picking put a single moment within this song that deserves to be a whiff. Just imagine the whole thing as reeking of two week old diaper refuse.

These fucksticks try way too hard to be funny and edgy. Here’s an idea: I chop off the legs of all the band members, then kick their legless bodies down into a briar patch much like the one Simba had to crawl through in The Lion King to escape the hyenas just after Mufasa bit the big one. Then I would spray the whole area with gasoline, light a match, toss it in there, and watch the spectacle. Is that funny and edgy enough for ya? Simon says better start crawling bitches.

Jack Bauer

This is awful; that guitar tone makes me want to vomit.

DeadButtDreaming

I nominate the whole new Archspire album. 99% of tech death is horrible. This tripe is at the opposite end of the scale from even being acceptable. If you enjoy this, you’re a shitty person.

Jöhnny Crünch

Shots fired. How anyone likes this hot mess of inaudible sounds thrown together is beyond me.

Ghost Flusher

Once again, being topical. However this band is waaaaaay fucking worse. Kids, take some damn notes from Mel Gibson. If you’re gonna start shit, at least have the talent to back it the fuck up.

Masterlord Steel Dragon

Listen up. Just because Black Metal is called “Black Metal” doesn’t mean it’s black metal. Not only is Black Metal not black metal, it’s not good metal either. It’s not even mediocre metal. “Teacher’s Pet” somehow manages to stand out as the worst song on an album full of songs that are already pretty much maximally awful. It might be one of the worst songs ever written. Venom sucks. No amount of Satan on the cover can change that.

Feel free to defend any of these choices in the comments section and tell me what a turd I am for my opinion. Also, if you hate something I love, send it to me for the next Whiff o’ the Week! All opinions here are strictly those of the writer in question, although most of them are correct.